forum: Food & Drink

Butter Free Puff Pastry

Has anyone got a recipe for rough puff pastry which contains no butter? I know it sounds like a contradiction so let me explain.

I was in Sainsburys the other day and picked up a block of their pre-rolled puff pastry. To my surprise there was no mention of butter in the ingredients. I emailed the company to confirm this and yes there was no butter used!

The fact that there was no butter in the product actually pleased me because it means I can now give my colleague apple turnover when he visits next. I would normally just have an apple tart for him.

Butter, as you all know, has become pretty expensive these days and if I could use a ruff puff pastry for my pies etc it surely would cut the price down and maybe help make the pastry that little bit quicker.

Re: Butter Free Puff Pastry

Butter free puff pastry ?

Maybe you could use a margarine ,or, even half butter and half marg' , but its the butter that gives the flavour , if it was me.. I would spend the extra cash and go for butter , mince pies are not eaten all year round and they have to taste good.

Do you always shop in the same supermarket each ime of can yo get to others to look around for offers.

Re: Butter Free Puff Pastry

I think a lot of commercial puff pastry uses margarine or shortening.

The one and only time I made puff pastry was in school, and we used half butter, half Cookeen, which is a hard vegetable shortening like Trex or Crisco. I don't know if they were saving money or if the harder fat gave a better texture. I know shortcrust is better made with lard or shortening than with butter.

Re: Butter Free Puff Pastry

If you were to make ruff puff pastry with margarine, it would have to be a hard margarine. But, if you want the taste of butter, and your friend is prepared to try some beforehand, you could President butter, which is made from fermented cream (creme fraiche), and which has much less lactose in it as a result. My lactose-intolerant husband seems to be fine eating it ... It certainly tastes much better than margarine, and gives a much better texture, too.

Re: Butter Free Puff Pastry

Sorry I always still think of margarine as the blocks of hard margarine. I always think of the soft stuff in tubs as 'spread' .

That's interesting what you say about the president butter , I had not realised that . I have some in the fridge at the moment but its the spreadable pot rather than the block. I have not tried it yet .

Re: Butter Free Puff Pastry

hmm,

There are mainly 2 reasons that the industry mostly don't use butter in puff pastry (unless the package says so to add value of course):- Milk fat is expensive: more expensive than most fats from vegetable origin.- Milk fat is not the ideal fat for making puff pastry: Although there are a few techniques for making puff pastry it all comes down to this: between the various dough layers there is a very thin layer of fat. This fat keeps the various layers of dough 'apart' enabling a nice puffing during baking. So what you want is NOT TO BREAK this very thin fat layer. Butter 'breaks' / spreads easily uneven while making puff pastry dough. Therefore the best fat for industrial puff pastry is actually quite hard and kneadable. It doesnt feel fatty and it's texture is well... more like clay. With this fat you can make very thin WHOLE layers of fat between the dough layers.

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